The Biggest Increase in Independent Spending Was among Party-Related Groups; Direct Citizens United Impact Not Demonstrated

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The Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) today released a draft working paper called “The Impact of Citizens United in the States: Independent Spending in State Elections, 2006-2010.”(Revised 2014) The paper found a substantial increase in independent spending whose timing straddles Citizens United but questions whether that decision explains the increase. After dividing the states into two groups, it found no difference between states that had regulated business or labor independent spending before the Court’s decision and those that had not. It also found no systematic increase in independent spending across states by corporations, labor unions, umbrella business organizations or ideological groups.

Rather the bulk of the increased spending could be attributed to party network organizations, particularly the national organizations of state elected officials (such as the Republican and Democratic Governors Associations). These organizations were moving their funds in complicated patterns across state boundaries that were often difficult to track under current disclosure laws. They were acting as party support organizations in all but the most formal sense of that term.

Thus, the paper does not find Citizens United (as opposed to other recent decisions and policies) having a direct impact on independent spending patterns in the states in 2010. This could change in future elections, of course. Nevertheless the variation across states raises caution flags about reaching simplistic conclusions as to causes and effects. At the same time, the findings about party network spending underline the significance of what did occur.

The paper was co-authored by Keith E. Hamm, professor of political science at Rice University; Michael J. Malbin, CFI’s executive director and professor of political science at the University at Albany, SUNY; Jaclyn J. Kettler, Ph.D. candidate at Rice University; and Brendan Glavin, Data and Systems Manager at CFI. Based on data supplied by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, the paper was originally prepared for the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association to be held in New Orleans August 30-September 2. Weather conditions forced the APSA meeting’s cancellation. After subsequent revisions to include more 2010 data from several states, the authors decided to release the working paper now, before the 2012 election, because of interest expressed in the trajectory of independent spending in 2012.

An abstract as it appears in the paper is reproduced below. The full working paper is attached and is also available on the Campaign Finance Institute’s website at this link.

ABSTRACT

There can be no denying the profound changes in U.S. campaign financing since the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Nevertheless, there has been confusion about the extent to which the decision should be seen as the primary explanation for what has occurred. This paper begin to disentangle the strands through an analysis of independent expenditures in elections at the state level in 2006 and 2010 from new data gathered and supplied by the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

The paper’s findings tend not to support some key claims being made on both sides of the contemporary political debate surrounding independent spending. First, contrary to statements made by some of the decision’s critics, we find that Citizens’ United itself did not have a noticeable direct effect on independent spending in 2010 – although this could, of course, change. Increases were more or less comparable in states that prohibited corporate spending before the decision and those that did not. However, the paper also addresses one of the claims normally associated with the opposite side of the political spectrum. It is often said that limiting contributions to the political parties (ending “soft money”) has displaced party money, increasing independent spending by unaccountable non-party organizations. We find that party contribution limits have indeed displaced some party independent spending in the years and states we studied. However, the displacement has been not been toward ideological groups, umbrella organizations or vaguely defined party networks, but rather toward national organizations of state elected and party officials who are acting as party organizations in all but the most formal sense of that term.

The Campaign Finance Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit research institute. Statements of the Campaign Finance Institute and its Task Forces do not necessarily reflect the views of CFI's Trustees or financial supporters.